Journal Article

Analysis of the Social-Ecological Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Ghana: Application of the DPSIR Framework

Kyere-Boateng, Richard, Marek, Michal V.

2021

Overview

Globally, forests provide several functions and services to support humans’ well-being and the mitigation of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The services that forests provide enable the forest-dependent people and communities to meet their livelihood needs and well-being. Nevertheless, the world’s forests face a twin environmental problem of deforestation and forest degradation (D&FD), resulting in ubiquitous depletion of forest biodiversity and ecosystem services and eventual loss of forest cover. Ghana, like any tropical forest developing country, is not immune to these human-caused D&FD. This paper reviews Ghana’s D&FD driven by a plethora of pressures, despite many forest policies and interventions to ensure sustainable management and forest use. The review is important as Ghana is experiencing an annual D&FD rate of 2%, equivalent to 135,000 hectares loss of forest cover. Although some studies have focused on the causes of D&FD on Ghana’ forests, they failed to show the chain of causal links of drivers that cause D&FD. This review fills the knowledge and practice gap by adopting the Driver-Pressures-State-Impacts-Responses (DPSIR) analytical framework to analyse the literature-based sources of causes D&FD in Ghana. Specifically, the analysis identified agriculture expansion, cocoa farming expansion, illegal logging, illegal mining, population growth and policy failures and lapses as the key drivers of Ghana’s D&FD. The study uses the DPSIR analytical framework to show the chain of causal links that lead to the country’s D&FD and highlights the numerous interventions required to reverse and halt the ubiquitous perpetual trend of D&FD in Ghana. Similar tropical forest countries experiencing D&FD will find the review most useful to curtail the menace.

• Publisher: MDPI AG
• Subject: Agricultural expansion / Agricultural production / Biodiversity / Carbon / Chains / Cocoa / Deforestation / Depletion / Developing countries / Ecological effects / Ecosystem services / Ecosystems / Environmental degradation / Environmental policy / Environmental protection / Forest & brush fires / Forest degradation / Forest management / Ghana / Greenhouse gases / greenhouses / Land degradation / LDCs / livelihood / Logging / people / Population growth / Regulation / Sustainability management / Timber rights / Tropical forests / Wildlife conservation